different between gadget vs apparatus

English

Etymology

Unknown. First used in print by Robert Brown in 1886 (see quote in definition section). Might come from French gâchette or gagée. Compare Finnish koje (“instrument, device”).

Pronunciation

• (Received Pronunciation) IPA^(key): /?æd??t/
• (General American) IPA^(key): /?æd??t/
• Rhymes: -æd??t
• Hyphenation: gad?get

Noun

gadget (plural gadgets)

1. (obsolete) A thing whose name cannot be remembered; thingamajig, doohickey.
   • 1886, Robert Brown, Spunyard and Spindrift, A Sailor Boy's Log of a Voyage Out and Home in a China Tea-clipper:

     Then the names of all the other things on board a ship! I don't know half of them yet; even the sailors forget at times, and if the exact name of anything they want happens to slip from their memory, they call it a chicken-fixing, or a gadjet, or a timmey-noggy, or a wim-wom—just pro tem., you know.

2. Any device or machine, especially one whose name cannot be recalled. Often either clever or complicated.

3. (informal) Any consumer electronics product.
4. (computing) A sequence of machine code instructions crafted as part of an exploit that attempts to divert execution to a memory location chosen by the attacker.
   • Security > Red Hat > CVE Database > CVE-2019-1125

     A Spectre gadget was found in the Linux kernel's implementation of system interrupts.

Synonyms

• contraption
• contrivance
• doohickey
• gizmo
• widget

Alternative forms

• gadjet

Derived terms

• gadgetbahn
• gadgety

Translations

Further reading

• gadget on Wikipedia.Wikipedia

Anagrams

• dagget, tagged

French

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Pronunciation

• IPA^(key): /?a.d??t/

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget

Italian

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Noun

gadget m (invariable)

1. gadget (small device)

Romanian

Etymology

From English gadget.

Noun

gadget n (plural gadgeturi)

1. gadget

Declension

Spanish

Etymology

Borrowed from English gadget.

Noun

gadget m (plural gadgets)

1. gadget

English

Etymology

Borrowed from Latin appar?tus. Doublet of apparat.

Pronunciation

• (UK, US, General South African, India)
  • IPA^(key): /æ.p???e?.t?s/
  • Rhymes: -e?.t?s
• (US, Canada, Philippine)
  • IPA^(key): /æ.p???æ.t?s/
  • Rhymes: -æt?s
• (UK, General Australian, General New Zealand, General South African, Jamaica)
  • IPA^(key): /æp?????t?s/
  • Rhymes: -??t?s

Noun

apparatus (plural apparatuses or apparatusses or apparatus or (rare) apparatûs or (hypercorrect) apparati)

1. The entirety of means whereby a specific production is made existent or task accomplished.

   Synonyms: dynamic, mechanism, setup

2. A complex machine or instrument.

   Synonyms: device, instrument, machinery

3. An assortment of tools and instruments.

   Synonyms: tools, gear, equipment

4. A bureaucratic organization, especially one influenced by political patronage.

   Synonym: machine

5. (firefighting) A vehicle used for emergency response.
6. (gymnastics) Any of the equipment on which the gymnasts perform their movements.

   Hyponyms: parallel bars, uneven bars, vault, floor, pommel horse, rings aka still rings, horizontal bar aka high bar, balance beam

7. (video games) A complex, highly modified weapon (typically not a firearm); a weaponized “Rube Goldberg machine.”

   Hyponyms: windlass crossbow, compound bow, complex trap

Usage notes

The word is occasionally used as an invariant plural, as in look at all of those apparatus, maintaining the Latin inflection in English on a loanword basis. But because the word also has a mass noun sense in English and it often appears in such a way that its number (singular or plural) is disguised by absence of any inflectional or lexical signals as to which of these two senses pertained in the mind of the writer, readers may parse it in either sense. Thus in the phrase he was dazzled by the electronic apparatus scattered throughout the room, either parsing works, and the reader cannot tell which one the writer had in mind, although that slight ambiguity is unimportant to the point being made.

Related terms

• apparat

Derived terms

Translations

Latin

Etymology

Perfect passive participle of appar? (“prepare”).

Pronunciation

• (Classical) IPA^(key): /ap.pa?ra?.tus/, [äp?ä??ä?t??s?]
• (Ecclesiastical) IPA^(key): /ap.pa?ra.tus/, [?p??????t?us]

Participle

appar?tus (feminine appar?ta, neuter appar?tum, comparative appar?tior, superlative appar?tissimus); first/second-declension participle

1. prepared, ready, having been prepared
2. supplied, furnished, having been supplied
3. magnificent, sumptuous, elaborate

Declension

First/second-declension adjective.

Noun

appar?tus m (genitive appar?t?s); fourth declension

1. preparation, a getting ready
2. A providing
3. tools, implements, instruments, engines
4. supplies, material
5. magnificence, splendor, pomp
6. vocative singular of appar?tus

Declension

Fourth-declension noun.

Descendants

Noun

appar?t?s m

1. genitive singular of appar?tus
2. nominative plural of appar?tus
3. accusative plural of appar?tus
4. vocative plural of appar?tus

References

• apparatus in Charlton T. Lewis and Charles Short (1879) A Latin Dictionary, Oxford: Clarendon Press
• apparatus in Charlton T. Lewis (1891) An Elementary Latin Dictionary, New York: Harper & Brothers
• apparatus in Charles du Fresne du Cange’s Glossarium Mediæ et Infimæ Latinitatis (augmented edition, 1883–1887)
• apparatus in Gaffiot, Félix (1934) Dictionnaire illustré Latin-Français, Hachette
• Carl Meissner; Henry William Auden (1894) Latin Phrase-Book?^[3], London: Macmillan and Co.
• apparatus in Ramminger, Johann (accessed 16 July 2016) Neulateinische Wortliste: Ein Wörterbuch des Lateinischen von Petrarca bis 1700?^[4], pre-publication website, 2005-2016